


Close your eyes and make a Winchester

by sebviathan



Category: Gravity Falls, Supernatural
Genre: Crossover, Dean and Dipper bonding, Gen, Mabel expectedly has a crush on Sam, an actual hunt happens believe it or not, takes place sometime during s8, the usual winchester feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-29
Updated: 2014-07-29
Packaged: 2018-02-10 22:17:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2042289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sebviathan/pseuds/sebviathan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam and Dean haven't had a case in a week or so, and they find themselves in Oregon, just wishing for a case. When they hear of Gravity Falls, it seems like a cheesy enough tourist trap to relax for a bit in, but the town turns out to be so much more, and they realize they're not alone on their new case when Mabel and Dipper Pines show up. (Spoilers for Se.8 of SPN and ep.17 of GF)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Re-posted from my FF.net account, originally written over a year ago.
> 
> I meant to structure this like a Supernatural episode, but still keep the sort of charm that Gravity Falls has. So basically I kept Sam and Dean as in character as possible while still trying to give the storyline the potential to actually be a Gravity Falls episode.

It had been a boring week for Sam and Dean so far, not hearing of so much as a vague sign of supernatural activity. That sort of thing just happened sometimes—so they'd spent the last few hours driving through mountain and forest country, hoping that they'd have some luck finding a monster attack in the woods up here. So far today, there still wasn't anything in any of the local newspapers about mysterious hiking deaths or disappearances into the woods or anything of the sort. Dean hated to admit it, especially considering lives would have been at stake, but he was disappointed that there was nothing for him to kill.

"We've just got to keep moving north," Sam assured him, noticing how restless his brother seemed to be getting as he drove. "There's always  _something_  up in these foresty parts."

Dean acknowledged him with a grunt and went on driving, looking hopefully out the window every few minutes to see if he could catch a glimpse of anything in the tall trees on either side of them. When there was nothing, he supposed he hadn't expected anything to be near the road, anyway.

He half-considered just setting up somewhere and hunting for whatever might be in the area—except they never did that, and even their dad had told them not to, since it would have just been stupid. They waited for something to happen so they could figure out what they were going after without having to put themselves in danger first. That's how it had always been, and they weren't going to change the rules just because things were getting a little boring.

After about half an hour, they saw a roadsign for the nearest city, Culver, in ten miles. Population less than two-thousand. That gave Dean some hope, since it always seemed to be the smaller towns that had some creature eating people in the outskirts. When they drove into town, he turned into the parking lot of the first diner they saw.

"Let's stop here for a bite and see if we can find anything in the local news," he said, getting out of the Impala and shutting the door loudly. "Or at least anything in the freaking state of Oregon."

Sam smirked at Dean's frustration and grabbed his laptop to take into the diner. He hoped they had wifi. Then again, they always did.

It wasn't quite noon yet, so there was still time to order one of the breakfast sandwiches, which put Dean in an uplifting mood already. Once they ordered their food, Sam went searching away on his laptop.

By the time the food came back to them, he still couldn't find any freaky accidents or murders or reports of animals doing things they shouldn't. Pushing his laptop away with a sigh, Sam ate his egg sandwich and glanced over to Dean, who frowned down at his before picking it up to take a bite.

He smirked slightly at how childishly disappointed his brother seemed to be, and then his eyes darted over to a flyer that was taped to the window next to their booth.

"Hey dude, look at this," he said, and Dean followed Sam's eyes to the window. After reading it for a second, he reached up and pulled it off, then flattened it down on the table so it was easier for both of them to read it. The two brothers leaned in, the older one reading it out in a mock-fantastical voice:

"' _Come visit Gravity Falls, home of the Mystery Shack, where you'll find all things supernatural. Find your own mysteries all over town and in the famed Gravity Falls forest and discover the town's rich history in the Gravity Falls Museum._ '" Below was a picture of the town from a distance, and next to that was—"' _Other places of interest: Lake Gravity Falls, the Tent of Telepathy (meet a real psychic!), and Greasy's Diner, home of the best burgers in the county._ ' I dunno, man, sounds like just a cheesy summer tourist trap to me."

"Well, yeah, but it couldn't hurt to go check it out," Sam shrugged. "We've had cases at places that just seemed like fake tourist stuff before—besides, if there's nothing, maybe we can just enjoy our time off. Maybe there just isn't much supernatural going on and we have time to ourselves to just go to a stupid tourist town and have a little fun, you know?"

"Hm," Dean responded in a grunt while he read the bottom of the flyer and drew his eyes across the small map.  _Left off U.S. Highway 26. Tourist buses available._  "Well, it's pretty close from here. Probably only an hour-or-so drive. Hell, we've driven way further for less." Sam looked at him hopefully for another couple seconds before Dean said, "Alright, fine. Finish up your breakfast-lunch and then we'll get going."

* * *

What with all the signs, Gravity Falls wasn't hard to find, despite the town having mountains and woodland on three sides. As they drove into town, a lot of people turned to stare, likely because of the Impala. It being a tourist town, they probably didn't get many new people who weren't in tourist buses—not to mention that the Impala was a pretty freaking cool car. Dean smirked, proud of himself.

One of the first things they passed was a huge cabin-sort of building that looked pretty tourist-y. The door was open and the inside, from what they could see, looked like a gift shop.

" _The Mystery Hack_ ," Sam read, a bit of a sarcastic laugh in his voice.

"It's probably supposed to be the Mystery Shack," Dean supplied, noticing the spot where the  _S_  was missing.

Sam shot him a look. "No shit, Sherlock." Looking back over at the place, he said, "So, you wanna go in and check it out?"

"Nah, let's save it. The 'hack' part is probably true, anyway."

So they drove on through the neighborhood until they got to the middle of the town, where the library, museum, arcade, and several other places were at. Noticing the diner, Dean decided it was a good place to park. Now that they were close, they noticed that the place was built to look like a huge log, and that right under the main sign was the slogan:  _We have food_. At that, they looked at each other uncertainly but opened the car doors anyway.

"Come on, maybe we can get some freaky stories from the locals or something."

Inside were few teenagers in one of the booths, two truckers in another, and a businessman at one end of the bar. Sam and Dean looked around, both thinking that they should really clean up the place better, as they went to the front and sat in adjacent barstools.

Since it usually seemed to be that way, Dean expected a hot diner girl to serve them, but instead, a woman who had blue hair done up in a sort of beehive and only one of her eyes open came out from the back room with a notepad in her hand and a smile, ready to serve them. Immediately put off by her appearance, Dean glanced to Sam with an almost horrified expression but otherwise tried not to show his surprise or act rude. The woman's eye seemed to light up at the sight of them, at which they got the distinct impression that she found them very attractive. In a creepy old woman-way.

"Well  _hi_ , I haven't seen you boys around here—but then again we get a lot of tourists," she said friendily, leaning on the other side of the bar. The brothers instinctively scooted a away a little. "Are you on a honeymoon trip?"

The question wasn't surprising, and normally one of them would have automatically corrected that they were brothers, but with a single look to each other, they silently agreed that it was better to pretend they were together so this woman wouldn't flirt with them. So they smiled and nodded.

"Oh, how nice! Mazel tov. Well anyway, everyone calls me Lazy Susan. What can I get you boys?"

Glancing up at the menu on the wall above the bar, Dean said, "A regular cheeseburger with pickled chips. And… a medium root beer."

"Nothing for me, thanks," Sam said when she scribbled down Dean's order and glanced to him, and when she left to the kitchen, he looked over at his brother. "You just ate an hour ago."

"Yeah, well, I wanted to see if this place lived up to having the 'best burgers in the county.' 'Sides, I'm still hungry." Sam smirked in amusement and a few seconds later, Dean muttered, "She had a really annoying voice, didn't she?"

"Oh man, I know," agreed Sam, briefly stretching out his lips into his  _Nope_ -face. "And I can guess why they call her 'Lazy Susan'…. That eye was creepy as  _Hell_."

Dean could only agree with an eyebrow raise when the woman returned with a plate of food to deliver to the business man and then winked at them as she returned once again to the kitchen.

When she finally had their food, they didn't hesitate to try to start up a conversation that might help them.

"So, we've heard a lot about this town," Dean started before he even touched his burger, "is any of it true? Any of that supernatural stuff, I mean."

"Well, we got all sorts of legends, like the gobblewonker in the lake, but I've never seen anything myself, so I can't tell you much, hon. But the whole town swears up and down that that old convenience store  _Dusk 2 Dawn_  is haunted—it got abandoned and shut down years ago after the couple that ran it were murdered. Ever since, anyone who's gone in there has disappeared."

Sam and Dean looked at each other, and through another silent exchange they agreed to go check it out later. There was a moment of silence before the former said, "Um—we might be staying in town a few days, so is there anything else you think we should know about Gravity Falls, Lazy Susan?"

Thinking about it a moment, she said, "Be careful of Old Man McGucket—he's the town kook, and he might be a little dangerous. Oh, and if you're looking for a place to stay, there's a motel down the road!"

"Thank you very much," Sam said on instinct, and Dean internally scoffed at his brother's politeness.

"No problem, sweetie!"

Sam decided to do a little research on Gravity Falls on his laptop while Dean ate, but he couldn't find anything supernatural but a few reported sightings of bigfoot. And he didn't take those seriously, since just about every town with a forested area had those. There were, however, reports of disappearances that matched up with the convenience store story. He closed his laptop just as Dean was wiping the grease from the burger off his mouth.

"That burger was a  _lie_ ," he said immediately, frowning as he pulled a five out of his wallet and set it down next to their food. "If that was the best in the county, we're not eating anymore burgers until we're out of Oregon. The pickled chips weren't too bad, though."

"Figured. You wanna leave, then?"

"Sure—wait, what's that over there?" He pointed to the machine at the far right end of the diner, and he and Sam got up to go see what it was. "Test your manliness, win free pancakes. Ha—dude, we should do it. I bet I'm manlier than you."

Rather than giving Dean the  _You may be older than me but you're such a five year-old_  look, Sam simply frowned and said, "No way, man—I'll beat you, easy."

Squinting his eyes in defiance, Dean pulled out two quarters from his pocket and inserted them. He looked away from Sam and shook his arms for a moment to ready himself, then gripped the handle and squeezed as hard as he could.

Oh man, that thing was difficult. All that muscle he'd built up from fighting monsters seemed to only be good enough for the third bar:  _Barely Passable._

"Oh, tough luck," Sam mock-consoled, grinning at Dean's butthurt face. "My turn."

He put in two more quarters and did the same, and not nearly as much strain showed on Sam's face as he squeezed the handle, though his arm muscles were very distinctly straining, and—within about ten seconds, the bars lit up all the way to the top.  _Manly Man._

The few that were in the diner clapped, and Sam's smirk was extremely smug. He denied the free pancakes, though, and continued to smirk at Dean's frustration on the way out the door and to the car.

"That doesn't prove anything," grumbled the older brother, making a mental note to work out more.

* * *

After checking into the motel (which was cleaner than expected) with fake credit cards, Sam and Dean took off in the Impala once more to find the convenience store Lazy Susan had told them about.

"That woman wasn't lying," Sam started as they pulled up to the store, careful to drive around the back so no one caught them. "In the past fifteen years, there's been about twelve disappearances from teenagers reported having planned to go into  _Dusk 2 Dawn_ beforehand. The murder reports of the old couple I found were pretty vague, though. Like the police didn't really have any proof but instead were just shoehorning it with fake details."

"Nothing we haven't faced before," Dean grunted, shutting the door of the Impala with a loud thud and walking around to the trunk to find his weapon of choice. "Vengeful spirits, small town, incompetent cops…. Just like old times. It'll be nice to deal with something easy for a change."

Pulling out a flashlight, he turned it on and stuck it in between his teeth while he loaded salt rounds into a shotgun and waited for his brother to do this same. It wasn't exactly dark, but they expected it to be dim in the abandoned store. With one look at each other, they acknowledged that they were ready with a sharp nod and shut the trunk together.

It wasn't at all difficult to pick the lock in the back door, as usual, but what did surprise them was that the light actually turned on when Dean flipped the switch. Usually that was just a "just in case" thing, but it never worked.

"How is the electricity in this place still running?" Sam asked warily, hesitating to turn his flashlight off and readying his gun in suspicion.

"I dunno, man—woah, look at this…." Dean kept his gun ready as he walked carefully over to the ice freezer and laid a hand on it. "Holy crap, it's still cold. How long ago was this place abandoned, again?"

"About twenty years ago," said Sam, curiously feeling the freezer himself. "There's no way the city's been paying for the electricity in this place themselves—it's got to be something supernatural keeping this place together."

Looking around a little more for a few seconds, the taller brother pulled an EMF detector out of his pocket and turned it on.

"Holy—"

It went crazy at once and without any warning, which could only mean the ghosts they were dealing with were pretty powerful spirits.

"I would say that the EMF's going nuts, but that would be an understatement."

"Dude, that thing's off the reservation," Dean said before taking a stance and spinning around strategically to see if he could catch sight of any movement. There was nothing, surprisingly, behind him (since a lot of these things tended to be melodramatic), but when he went into the next aisle, several bags of candy were knocked over.

And then it turned out to just be Sam and his huge frame knocking into the shelf, but it turned abnormal when they both heard an icy voice say, " _Clean that up._ "

Not so much scared as confused, they looked to each other with raised eyebrows and silently agreed to do what the spirit said. When they placed everything back on the shelf, they continued through the aisles to no avail before they reached the tape lines of where their bodies must have been when they died.

"Check around the register—if they  _were_  murdered, they probably got shot over here or something, so maybe we'll find some ectoplasm," Sam advised, and Dean nodded.

Just like his brother said, there was black goo on the edge of the counter. There was no doubt that this was a haunting, now. "So what do we—"

Cutting him off was his cellphone, which rang with one of those default ringtones. At first he wondered who the hell would be calling him, but then he remembered the moment before he checked it—it wasn't a call, but an alarm he'd set.

"Crap, I'm missing the new episode of Dr. Sexy," he huffed. Sam barely had time to give him a look before the lights flickered and there was an extremely evident breeze in the store, and in the next second the windows were frozen over.

Right before their eyes, a message was being written in the frost as though by someone's finger:  _How old are you?_

That was a lot less cryptic than they expected. The lack of danger in this case was really throwing them off.

Looking confusedly up at the ceiling, Dean hesitated and said clearly, "Thirty-three…?"

Sam cleared his throat. "Twenty-nine."

And just like that, the frost from the windows melted and everything was back to normal, leaving the brothers feeling awkward and still confused. Eyes still wide, they turned around, expecting something else. But there was still nothing.

When they turned their heads around again, the window was frosted over just enough for them to read the word "GO" written in it before melting once again. While they obviously weren't afraid of spirits, they figured there was just nothing else to do here. The ghosts weren't even going to try to harm them—they just wanted them to go away.

"That was… strange," was the first thing Sam had to say as they made their way back to the Impala. "Even for us."

Dean waited until he'd put away the gun in the compartment under the trunk before replying. "What kind of ghost wants ASL? And if everyone else who's gone in there has disappeared, then why were we not even attacked?"

"Well…." Sam leaned with both hands on the trunk of the Impala, thinking. "Everything frosted over right after your phone rang. And then they asked for our age, and when we answered, they stopped. Maybe they attack based on age?"

"Yeah, maybe…. Didn't you say everyone who'd disappeared were teenagers?"

"Yeah, but usually teenagers are the only ones stupid enough to go into supposedly haunted places, so that doesn't really mean anything on its own… but it's probably right, now that we know more."

"So, what are you thinkin'? Old couple gets killed by teenagers, forever hates teenagers in the afterlife?"

"I guess, assuming they were even murdered. But regardless of their motives, we're going to torch their bones anyway—they're dangerous spirits who need to be put to rest in any case."

* * *

It was probably one of the easiest hauntings they'd ever stopped. That night when it was the least likely for them to get caught, they took the routine trip of leaving the motel and driving to the local cemetery, pulling shovels out from the trunk, and heading out. It wasn't even difficult to find the graves of Ruth and Joseph Winchell (though everyone called them Ma and Pa for some reason, as even said on their tombstones), and after that everything was just the busywork of digging up graves.

"I kind of actually wish this had been more of a challenge," Dean admitted as he sprinkled salt over the two skeletons in the double casket. "Sure, easy is less risk, but to hunters, this is child's play, man."

"Careful what you wish for," said Sam, simultaneously pouring the lighter fluid over them.

Just as he lit the match, the spectral figures of two somewhat overweight old people appeared to be heading for them from a short distance. What with how easy this had all been so far, Dean was slightly shocked, but not enough to neglect to aim salt rounds at the both of them. He slowed them down just long enough for Sam to throw down the match and let the bones go up in flames. The ghosts appeared again just to show them deteriorating and being burned away from worldly existence, which told them there wasn't any particular object keeping them attached.

"Easy as pie," said Dean, and for the first time in a long time  _unsarcastically_. "Speaking of pie, we should see if there's any other all-night convenience stores in this town and get some."

Sam was surprised his brother hadn't outright suggested they go back to  _Dusk 2 Dawn_  and see if any of the pie there was still good. And pie or no pie, they were both glad for a worry-free eight hours of sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

Normally, the Winchesters left a town once they solved a case—though they did often stick around to say goodbye or give advice to whomever they'd saved (if anyone), or for one of them to go have one last kiss with whatever girl they'd grown to like. Either way, there was generally some closure, and then they would leave. It was because it wasn't safe for them (or for the people around them) to stay in one place too long, both due to monsters and the police, and also because they had to stay on the road so they could always be on the lookout for something to hunt.

So despite the fact that they hadn't even come to Gravity Falls with the  _intention_  of hunting something, and they didn't really see any danger posed in staying a little longer since it had only been ghosts and no one even knew what they'd done, Sam and Dean agreed it was probably better to head out again the next day. Not to mention that "It's always been Dad's rules, Sam—no exceptions."

Of course, they weren't going to up and leave without getting a little breakfast first. They didn't see any harm in heading over to Greasy's Diner one last time.

However, on the way there, they noticed what looked like a conflict in front of Town Hall. There were about five people on the top of the stairs, and a small crowd was gathered around. First glancing to each other and nodding, the brothers slowed to a stop and got out of the Impala.

"Excuse me," Sam said to a woman in the back, using his usual calm voice that made people open up nine times out of ten, "can you tell us what's going on here?"

"Yeah," she said flippantly, pointing over to the scene of the conflict, "all four of those guys say they've won the local lottery, and the mayor has no idea what to do about it. I wonder if they'll—"

But Sam had already nodded and started pushing through the crowd with Dean to approach the mayor and four angry townsmen.

"Who are—?"

"FBI," Dean answered at once, and they both held up their fake badges just long enough for the man to tell that they were serious. He briefly glanced to Sam, who agreed with the look in his eyes that this was probably the most quickly they had made a rash decision to be cops in a long time. "We hear all  _four_  of you think you've won the lottery, is that right?"

All but one of them eyed Sam and Dean with slight suspicion—probably for their clothes and the usual thoughts of  _Why are the FBI interested?_ —before saying anything: "…Yes, it is," the man who must have been the mayor, for he looked the most flustered, said. "I've got the numbers right here." He pulled out a sheet of paper with the Gravity Falls lottery of each week and pointed to the one for this week, and then showed them the four lottery tickets. They all had the same numbers. "But it's simply impossible! I would understand maybe one extra printing mistake, but three? We've never had this problem before, agents. I admit I don't know the law well enough to know what to do besides split up the lottery, but none of these men seem to be happy with that solution…."

Dean's first guess was witchcraft, but the chances that three men in this town were witches and used it to win the lottery were  _really_  low, and either way, who would waste witchcraft on a  _local_  lottery? He looked to Sam, who had taken a step toward the men.

"Well, aside from a printing mistake, can any of  _you_  think of a reason why all four of you won the lottery?" he asked firmly. Perhaps he could get something out of them.

All of them gave him genuine-looking baffled frowns and shook their head—but for one, who looked somewhat guilty for a split second. It didn't go unnoticed by Sam, who shot a  _Come here_  look back to Dean and waved off the mayor.

"Would you mind giving us a minute, sir? It really won't be very long." Looking a little relieved, the mayor nodded and took several steps away. Sam made sure the townspeople weren't close enough to hear and walked the men a little further back.

"I saw that," he said sharply to the man who'd looked guilty. He seemed to be a well-rounded father who probably worked in retail and never touched a witchcraft book in his life. But you could never be sure. "If you've got something to tell me about this, tell me. It'll make this all go quicker, and you all can get your money and go home."

Seemingly convinced just by Sam's voice alone (and perhaps also his height, since the man had to bend his neck back a lot just to look at his face), he sighed and said, "It's going to sound stupid and probably won't even matter, but—well… I wished on a dandelion to win the lottery. See, I told you it was stupid. But that's the only thing I can tell you, okay?"

Just as both Sam and Dean raised their eyebrow at that odd confession, another man in the group admitted, "So did I, actually. But—you can't possibly think that makes any difference?"

Rather than acknowledging the man, Dean, without even attempting to look like he was only asking this as a necessary FBI procedure, asked the other two: "Did you fellas happen to wish on dandelions for this, too?" They both hesitantly nodded.

"Are you insinuating those flowers actually had anything to do—?"

"No, of course not," assured Dean. "But because of this mistake, there's no way to tell who got the real winning ticket, so legally, you'll all have to split it up and quit being butthurt about it. Thank you for your time, gents…."

He trailed off as he and Sam started to walk away and back to the Impala. They didn't say anything until they had closed both doors and had put the car in gear again.

"So. Ghosts, and then freakin'  _dandelion wishes_?" Dean said in frustration, smacking the steering wheel "What is going  _on_  in this town?"

"Well, Lazy Susan did say there were all sorts of legends around here…. There's probably even more than this."

At the thought of more ridiculous mysteries, Dean groaned.

* * *

Neither of them had to say anything for it to be established that they were staying in Gravity Falls longer, or that they were still going to Greasy's Diner so they could have wifi and do some research.

Lazy Susan recognized them when they walked in and gave them a wink—not even with her good eye, but by manually opening her lazy eye and closing it. Dean briefly felt like vomiting a little in his mouth but smiled back anyway, and they picked a booth instead of the bar this time.

"I'll go win us some free pancakes," Sam said as Dean sat down, giving him the bitchiest bitch-face ever. As he walked off to the manliness tester, the older brother scowled and opened up the laptop to get a head start on the research.

Once again, it was easy enough for Sam to grip that thing to the top level, and there was another applause for him as Lazy Susan handed him a huge platter of pancakes. With the look she gave him, though, he had a feeling she would have given him free pancakes even if he hadn't won.

Dean ate in silence and didn't talk for several minutes in his bitterness, but when Sam finished his half of the pancakes, he said, "Finished? Great, now you can go find all the local newspapers from the past couple months while I stay here and research dandelions."

"What?" said Sam, sounding scandalized. And again with the bitch-face. "Since when do you do the internet research?"

"Since you decided to go be a bitch," Dean told him flatly. "So you're gonna do the manual research this time. It's good to have a little change, anyway." He smiled up at his younger brother in a slightly sadistic way as Sam sighed.

"Fine. But I'm taking the Impala."

* * *

Once he'd figured out where the local newspaper was printed from Lazy Susan, Sam drove over there and requested all the newspapers that had been printed since May. The man who worked there was very small and seemed to be very intimidated by him, so he gave him the stack of newspapers quickly and barely gave him room to say that he intended to pay for them.

Right as he was about to thank the man, a rather attractive woman stepped out from the back room, wearing a dress that was so short Sam felt like he had walked in on something.

"Toby? What's taking so long?"

"I'll be right back, Shandra!" the small reporter assured, his eyes glazed over as he looked at her, as though she was the best thing he could have ever wished for.

That in itself wouldn't have been suspicious, but, while Sam didn't know either of these people, he knew that statistically, women that attractive didn't get with men like  _Toby_. Sam didn't try to be judgmental, but that guy was small and sickly. There was no way this wasn't the result of a wish.

Eyeing Toby with suspicion, Sam decided that he couldn't just walk out of here and let this wish continue—but he also couldn't force the woman away from him without knowing how to undo the wish. His only option was to give a bit of semi-cryptic advice.

"Thanks. And just so you know, wishes that mess with other people never end well. She's not herself right now, and you know that."

With that, he left the man with a horrified look and nervous sweat. And now that he had all these newspapers, well… he figured he should go re-book a hotel room so he could get that over with as well as have a place to read all of them.

* * *

"Turns out the whole dandelion thing isn't really that much of a childish tradition," Dean said as soon as he met up with Sam in front of Greasy's Diner about an hour later. He tucked the laptop case safely under his arm as he got back in the Impala, briefly checking everything to make sure Sam hadn't screwed it up. "Legends date back to the 1800's—people thought fairies lived inside the premature dandelions, so by blowing all the seeds off, they set them free and were granted a wish. And obviously that couldn't _really_  be true, since tons of people make dandelion wishes that don't come true, but—"

"But there easily could have been a source for the legend that spread…," Sam finished, as usual. "Could you find anything that might've been the source?"

"Well, the most specific geographical source I could find was Europe. Probably around France. But if that's true, what are they doing in Oregon?"

Thinking to himself that this sort of thing seemed to happen a lot—creatures leaving their native zone, that is, Sam leaned back in the passenger seat. "Dunno. But hey, get this—so I've been looking through all the newspapers as of the past several weeks, and there have been  _tons_  of weird things going on in this town. Not even necessarily bad things with anyone getting hurt—just  _weird_  things…. Some creatures like a lake monster and gnomes being sighted, wax statues coming to life, everything in the town getting all pixel-y for a day… just strange stuff. Probably why it never got on the internet—this town isn't exactly well-known. And there's one family that's been popping up in almost all of these stories—the Pineses."

Dean's eyes widened at that—they always did when they got a solid lead on a case. "Awesome—you find out where they live?"

"Yeah, the Mystery Shack."

* * *

After donning their FBI outfits back at the motel, they drove to the end of the road and parked in front of the Mystery Shack with the other cars. Luckily, they weren't swarmed with tourists when they walked in.

It was probably the biggest stretch they'd ever taken for the fed suits—with no deaths and not even any violence, they had nothing to really base their "investigation" on and would only be more suspicious because of that. This was the sort of thing that couldn't even get a response of "Why are the feds interested in this?"—because there wasn't anything solid for them to even be interested  _in_. But if there  _was_  something going on with the Mystery Shack, then they'd likely be unwilling to give up answers to normal tourists or journalists. Being Federal agents was generally the easiest way to intimidate people.

When they stepped into the gift shop, they looked around briefly and noticed the overall tackiness of the place. It seemed bizarre that this could be an actual spot of supernatural occurrence…. But then again, they'd seen it before. Some tourist-trapping hack turns out to be covering up for their actual abilities. It wasn't uncommon.

The teenage girl at the counter didn't even look up from her magazine as they walked in. Giving each other their usual mutual  _look_ , they approached the counter and cleared their throats.

"Excuse me, ma'am—FBI. Agents Walden and Rogers. We're here following up on a case inside the county and wanted to ask you a few—"

"Woah, FBI?" The girl pulled her lumberjack hat above her eyes and didn't seem at all put-off by them being feds, but rather excited. She turned her head toward the "Employees Only" door and yelling, "Dipper, Mabel, the FBI is here!"

Both of them figured that actual Federal agents would react differently, but this sort of thing had never happened before, and they had no time to protest before two kids who looked like twins and couldn't be older than twelve rushed out of the door and nearly fell on each other. The girl had a sweater on that looked a bit too big for her, and the boy looked like a boy scout with his hat and camping vest.

"Wow,  _real_  FBI agents!" the girl, who was presumably Mabel, exclaimed. She practically ran straight into Sam trying to approach him, who was too flustered to react as she said, "Oh my God, you're like, as tall as a moose! How did you even fit through the door?"

Dean was slightly jealous that he wasn't the one getting attention—but then he remembered that it was a twelve year-old girl and that it didn't freaking matter.

"Um… sorry about her," the boy said, looking like he had this problem a lot. "She's a little obsessive. But man, FBI, that's awesome! What are you guys doing here? Oooh—was there a death nearby? Or in the woods?"

That struck Dean as slightly odd. "Why would you think there might have been a death in the woods?" he asked immediately, and he forced himself to leave out  _"Do you think there's something in the woods?"_ ,since it would have been more suspicious.

"Uh—no reason, just thought there might have been a bear attack or something," he said quickly and with nervous laughter, which they didn't buy for one second.

"Well, we're following up on a county case," Sam decided it was a good time to add. "We just need to ask a few routine questions. First off—are you all the Pineses?"

" _We_  are," said Dipper, pointing to himself and his twin. "There's also our Grunkle Stan—and then Wendy and Soos just work here."

Dean made his signature frown of confusion. " _Grunkle?_ "

"Great-uncle. You know, mixed together." He sounded like he'd explained this a lot before.

"Have any of you seen anything particularly weird in this town?" Sam continued, looking intently in between all of them.

Though they expected the usual  _"Weird? Like what kind of weird?"_ , Dipper and Mabel shared a look not too different to what Sam and Dean often gave each other and then looked excitedly back at them.

"Trust us, we've seen a  _lot_  of weird," assured Dipper, and Mabel nodded profusely. He very briefly considered mentioning the book, but decided against it. While these guys seemed pretty cool, he didn't need the government knowing all about Gravity Falls's secrets. "But like—little kid weird, you know? Nothing I think could really help you on an investigation… heh."

Alright, that seemed suspicious. It definitely looked like the kid had just changed his mind about something.

"Hm. Has there been strange anything going on  _lately_  in Gravity Falls?"

"Yeah!" said Mabel at once, looking pretty excited to tell them. "My friends Grenda and Candy both got boyfriends this morning, but those boys just came out of nowhere, and it's just impossible for that to happen! And then Soos somehow got his hands on a bar of chocolate the size of  _him_  and won't tell me where it came from! But like, how does that even happen? It's like—"

"Mabel!" Dipper warned, looking panicky, like she had said something he didn't want the feds to hear. At that, Dean shot him a look.

"It's like  _what_?"

There was really no option for Mabel to not finish her sentence, and really, she didn't see much of a problem with her telling the FBI. "It's like everyone's wishes are coming true."

That was all they really needed from these kids. If they were involved in it, they weren't going to tell—but Sam and Dean knew that they were aware.

"Thank you for your time," said Sam, doing his best to sound nice. "Do you mind if we take a look at the attractions? It's a routine thing."

"Oh—yeah, sure," said Wendy. "No charge."

As they headed toward the other doorway, they heard someone else burst in through the door Mabel and Dipper had come through.

"Wendy!" said a scratchy, deep voice. "Did I hear you giving something away for free?"

"Yeah, but they're FBI, so—"

"The  _FBI_  are here?" There was a pause that could only have been the man looking up and noticing them, and Sam and Dean turned around. He was wearing a business coat and what looked like some sort of cult fez. He was automatically more suspicious. "Oh crap—I swear that tax fraud was unintentional, I didn't mean to write down—"

"Mr. Pines, calm down," Dean interrupted, getting the vibe that this guy really was nothing more than a hack. He didn't even recognize that symbol on his fez, and it really seemed much more to be the kids. "We're not here about your tax fraud. We've just been doing an investigation for a county case in the area, and we wanted a look around in the Mystery Shack. Although if you don't let us look for free, we could always look into that tax fraud—"

"No, be my guests, it's fine!" he said at once, with fake enthusiasm. "Go right ahead, no charge!"

Yeah, he was nothing more than a hack. Sam could practically sense it. He gave him a bitch-face smile before turning around and heading through the curtained doorway into the attractions room with Dean.

* * *

"Dude, this… yeah, this is all fake. Look, you can even  _see_  the seams on this thing where he glued the parts together. And if we weren't dressed as FBI, we'd be paying in the big bucks for all this fake crap."

"No EMF, either. And no sign of sulfur. No sign of anything the least bit supernatural, really."

With a sigh, Sam stuffed the EMF detector back in his pocket and continued looking around. The attractions were mainly fake stuffed creatures like jackalopes and hastily put-together "tablets" or whatever. It was obviously just styrofoam, unlike the actual Word of God.

"So… we have nothing on these kids, then," Dean sighed, exasperated as he kicked a box.

"Not from the Mystery Shack exhibition, at least," Sam corrected. "We'll need to find the kids' bedroom and search it."

"Well, this house has two floors, so it'll probably be the attic bedroom." When Sam looked at him oddly, he explained, "Kids always get the attic bedroom. It's just—it  _always_  happens. Come on, have you never watched any movies?"

"Whatever, man," Sam smirked. God, his brother was a dork. "Let's go make sure they'll all stay downstairs while I check—"

"Oh come on, why do you get to check?"

"Because you're bowl-legged and are more likely to make noise going up the stairs."

"Yeah, well—you're so tall your head will probably hit the ceiling!"

"Ugh, fine, we'll settle this like adults."

They both readied their hands to play rock-paper-scissors, two out of three.

* * *

Dean frowned as they walked out of the exhibition room to find the teenager and the girl twin sitting at the front desk while the boy twin stood a little further away, and as Sam said, "Everything checks out. Also, may I use your bathroom?"

"Yeah, sure, it's the second door down the hallway," Said Mabel cheerfully—mostly because she found Sam the more attractive of the two. Everyone always did, for some reason. She opened the "Employees Only" door and pointed him in the direction, and Dean pretended to look at the gift shop merchandise while he waited for his brother to get back.

Dipper Pines picked up a magazine he had probably looked over about a hundred times now as he tried to listen in on what his sister and Wendy were talking about. Mabel had told him to go away because it was "girl stuff," and so he couldn't get any closer than this. He also couldn't make it look like he was watching, which was why he was moving his eyes back and forth between Lumberjack Monthly and Wendy.

"Got a crush on her, huh?" came the deep voice of that FBI agent from his right. Startled, Dipper looked up to see him smirking. He sounded like the kind of guy who knew a lot about this kind of stuff—the kind of guy who would be an awesome dad.

"Uh… yeah," he admitted quietly, scratching the back of his head as per habit. "Is it that obvious?"

"Well, you're looking nervously in that direction a lot, and I'd hope you don't have a crush on your twin sister, so…."

"Ew, no." The kid sounded like he'd had to deal with people assuming that before, and Dean almost laughed, thinking about how at least he and Sam weren't  _twins_  people assumed were gay for each other.

"So, this girl… how much older is she than you?" Dean wanted to give the kid advice, but he didn't know if it would have been acceptable to give it, depending.

"Three years," Dipper sighed. "And she had this jerk of a boyfriend but then broke up with him, but I also had something to do with her breakup, so she's still a little mad at me because she thinks I'm selfish, and I think I ruined everything. And yeah, I know it would be weird for her to be my girlfriend since I'm only twelve, but I just want her to like me again."

Well, it didn't sound like anything Dean hadn't dealt with before. "Dipper, you are talking to the  _master_  of charming women," he said as he knelt down a little, and the kid looked at him in admiration. "You know there's only one thing to do, right? If you want her on your side again, you have to prove to her that you're  _not_  selfish. Do things without being asked. Offer to take her shift or something. Don't ask intrusive questions. Always asks what  _she_  wants instead of assuming she'll say yes to something. You can't go into love with selfish intentions, buddy."

As much as he may have not looked it, Dean was a gentle lover, even when he was hooking up for a one-night stand. But he supposed he couldn't be trusted with real love advice, considering he had never  _really_  found someone to love who loved him back. Well, he had, but that person was kind of lost at the moment and might never come back.

Yeah, no, he wasn't going to let himself think about Cas while on this case.

"So like… just, be selfless when it comes to her?" Dipper asked, looking longingly at her for a second.

"Not necessarily selfless," Dean told him. "Just make sure to think about her before you think about yourself, and it'll work out, trust me." He smiled when Dipper looked at him with that admiring look again—it was nice to have a kid look up to you. The kid briefly reminded him of Ben, at which point he had to force himself to stop thinking about that, too.

"Thanks, Agent, uh—"

"Dean," he confided after a moment's thought. Eh, what harm could it do for this kid to know? They gave out their real first names a lot, and Dipper was cool. "Just call me Dean."

"Thanks, Dean. Man, that other agent's taking a while in the bathroom…."

"He, uh—he has bladder dysfunction issues," Dean fabricated quickly, not having expected that—they'd never had anyone question that before. "You know, like old men get. 'Cept it's premature. It's a real burden on cases sometimes."

No more than a minute later, though, Sam came through the door again, slightly stumbling due to nearly not fitting through the threshold, and brushing himself off. He flashed a polite smile to Mabel and Wendy and then gave the signal to Dean to leave. As he followed his moose of a brother, Dean gave a sharp wave goodbye to Dipper.

"Well?" said Dean once they were outside again.

"You were right about the attic bedroom," Sam started. "But there's actually more room up there than you would think. I checked the actual attic up there, and there isn't much to go on except an Eye of Providence in the stained-glass window—"

"You mean that Freemason symbol on the dollar bill?"

"Yeah, that thing. Except it's not any version that I've seen before—it's got a bowtie, arms, legs, and a hat. Who knows, whole thing might be a joke. But, in the twins' bedroom, I found what looked like a set of notes—like one of them was trying to solve a code or something."

"Did you take it?"

"Nah, I figured they would realize if it was gone. You saw that kid get all defensive when his sister was going to tell us the vaguest detail. They're probably up to more than we'd expect."

Dean thought about how Dipper seemed to be a pretty normal twelve year-old boy and mindlessly tapped the steering wheel. Really, the kid seemed nice. Whatever the kids were doing to be involved in this, he was pretty sure they were on the good side. He could just feel it.

Then again, was there even a bad side with this? Sure, an argument or two had been caused, but these were  _wishes_. They weren't even the kind of wishes that had happened way back when with the wishing fountain—well, not yet. Even adults were compelled to make wishes on those little flowers for some reason, and sooner or later, someone was going to wish for something violent.

Soon enough, Dean parked them back in front of the motel. "Whad'ya say we ditch the fed suits and go walk around until we find some dandelions? We didn't learn jack squat about the Pines twins' involvement in this, so it's the only real option we got."

Sam was out of the car before he was even finished. "Sounds good. We've been driving around too much today, anyway."


	3. Chapter 3

It felt good to be back in their two layers of flannel and jeans, though Dean was sure that he and Sam going on a walk together and  _not_ looking professional looked pretty gay even from his own perspective. But whatever. It was impossible to get away from those assumptions.

There wasn't even much grass at all on the street the motel was on, since it was all business and retail stores. They kept a look out for dandelions as they walked—and Sam supposed they probably looked a little strange to passersby, but hey, what else was new? Once they reached the neighborhood part of Gravity Falls and started seeing lawns, they still didn't see any dandelions—but it was pretty soon after that they came upon a rather large park that definitely looked like there could be dandelions somewhere in that field.

"Circle Park," Dean read from the sign they were greeted with, and Sam let out a short laugh.

"Creative name," he said, taking long strides into the grass and continuing to look around. "It definitely is a circle…."

As they passed the playground part of the park in an attempt to not look like pedophiles (which had happened to them a surprising amount of times before), they noticed a girl near the swing getting pushed around by another girl, who was pulling her hair and pushing her around. Giving Sam an angry look first, Dean turned and yelled, "Hey!"

The bully looked straight at him and ran away, clearly without saying sorry, but the other girl looked at him in silent thanks and got up to brush herself off. Feeling he'd done his job, Dean started walking again.

"You know, demons and monsters really suck—but humans… just,  _humans_ , man. They're cruel. Especially kids."

No more than five minutes later, Dean spotted what seemed to be a patch full of premature dandelions a little ways away, and it turned out to be so. Stopping in front of it, they were silent for a moment, momentarily unsure of where to go from here.

"…D'you think these are the ones? said Sam almost hesitantly, looking questioningly to Dean.

"Only one way to find out." Finding himself strangely drawn to pick one, Dean bent down and plucked a dandelion from the grass. He thought of the most non-dangerous wish possible—just like he had the last time—and blew the seeds off, making sure they all came off in one breath, just in case.

In the next moment, there was a pie tin at his feet that hadn't been there before. Noticing it immediately, Dean gave Sam a  _Hey, what do you know?_  smile and went to pick it up while the younger brother just folded his arms in slight annoyance.

"What is it with you and food?"

Before he could answer, though, they both heard another voice from behind—

"You guys aren't really FBI, are you?" Oh man, if they each had a penny for every time they'd heard that….

If they had a penny for every time they'd heard it from a kid, though, they'd each have one. In fact, the Winchesters seemed to be going through a lot of  _firsts_  today with these kids.

Dean turned around to see Dipper's—thankfully not angry or even betrayed-looking—face. It was actually more of a satisfied smirk. Meanwhile, Mabel was staring up at Sam again. Man, that girl was like a second Becky…. But really, who  _were_  these kids? What did they have to do with all the weird goings-on in this town, and what were they even doing here?

"I—uh… no," Dean said flatly, accepting this as  _that time_  in pretty much every case that their cover is blown. "We're not. We're, uh—"

"You're trying to solve the mystery, like us, aren't you?" Mabel pressed, actually looking at Dean for a moment.

"Yeah, we are," Sam told them before Dean could. "We—well, we're… hunters," he hastily decided to confess, though quietly. "We hunt supernatural stuff. So this is our job. It might not be safe for you two to be tagging along, so—"

"What—no—" Dipper started—

"Of course we're tagging along!" Mabel finished. A smile twitched on Dean's lips at how close they seemed to be, to finish each other's sentences.

"It's not even dangerous—no one's gotten hurt, as far as we can tell—"

"—and we do this sort of thing all the time, so you're not going to tell us to back off! We're helping whether you like it or not." With that, she folded her arms and harrumphed.

Woah, Mabel could be intimidating when she wanted to. Dean decided that she had spunk and he liked her almost as much as Dipper.

And all that warranted a mutual look between Dean and Sam and a silent conversation of  _Should we let them or not?_  It lasted approximately two seconds before the older one sighed and said, "Fine. But right now this patch of dandelions is our only lead and it seems the most logical solution is to just torch the field and get rid of 'em—"

"What? You can't set the park on fire!" Mabel protested a little too loudly, and she was immediately shushed by all three of the others.

"Actually, this patch isn't our only problem," Dipper informed them seriously, and he started to pull a book out from his vest for proof.

* * *

Sitting down at a bench made it easier for Sam and Dean to not look like pedophiles and just less suspicious in general—though they assumed that with Gravity Falls being so small, folks around here probably didn't get very suspicious of others. There certainly wasn't any real crime rate. But it was best to be safe. Better for convenience, too.

"And— _where_ , exactly, did you find this book?" Dean asked seriously, not really liking the idea of some monster info book being in the hands of a kid.

"In the forest," Dipper told him, opening up the book and flipping through it to get to the page he wanted. "There was a metal tree with buttons inside, and they opened up a secret compartment in the ground. Apparently it was hidden there because the guy who wrote it was being watched."

"And you don't know who wrote it?" Sam thought to ask, frowning slightly.

"Well, we know his name was Bill. But we don't have a last name or picture or anything. I figure whoever he is, though, he lived a while ago and might not even be alive anymore…. Oh—here it is," Dipper said once he'd gotten to the page with illustrations of dandelions on it, and he read: "' _Deep in the Gravity Falls forest, close to the multi-bear's cave, there is a circle of True Dandelions. They were the original species from which normal dandelions came, and the sylphs living inside them actually do grant wishes. It doesn't seem as though they can grow anywhere outside this patch._ '"

Ah, Dean understood now. "So these wish-granting dandelions are only supposed to grow in that circle, but suddenly they decide to go out of their range?"

"Seems like it," Sam said with an annoyed-sounding sigh. "But why? Whoever it was, what's the  _motive_? For all we know, maybe some fairies just want people to have their wishes granted…."

"There's always  _some_  nefarious reason, Sammy, you know that. This kind of thing doesn't happen out of pure good will."

Dipper watched them and frowned a little in curiosity. "Are, uh, you two… brothers?" he wondered out loud. Because they acted kind of like he and Mabel did, and now that he knew they weren't actually in the FBI, it was definitely possible.

Dean smiled both at the kid's intelligence and the slight puberty crack in his voice. "Yeah, we are. Guess you could tell, huh?"

"Yeah, it's kind of obvious," Mabel answered for him, smiling endearingly at them. Mostly at Sam, though.

Well. Enough of that Lifetime movie moment. At once, Dean clapped his hands on his knees and stood up, looking over to motion everyone else to follow. He liked being the leader of the group, if only in the sense that he was walking in front of everyone else.

"It's great that we got some leads now," Sam started as they walked, "but I'm still not so sure if we even need to worry about hurrying with this case, since no real harm has been caused."

Dean rolled his eyes, wondering why, even now, his brother had to be so willing to give monsters and other potentially dangerous things the benefit of the doubt. There was always a reason to worry.

And as though to prove his point, they all heard the scream of a little girl and turned their heads to watch the bully kid from earlier get hit by a car. The other girl was nowhere in sight—until Dipper turned around and tugged on Dean's jacket to get him—and subsequently everyone else—to, too. She was standing in the field of dandelions, an empty green stalk in her hand and a gleeful smile on her face.

The first thing Dean did was whip his head around to look at an almost guilty-looking Sam. "You were  _saying_?"

* * *

That girl turned out to be alive, but she seemed to have broken both a leg and an arm from being hit. None of them could honestly feel all that bad for her, considering how much she'd been bullying the other girl, but they could agree she also didn't quite deserve it. How long was it going to be before someone  _died_ , now?

"We're not going to let that happen," Dean assured the twins when they both expressed their worries. "Remember, we're professionals. We've hunted down demons pretty quickly, so we can solve this dandelion thing in no time."

" _Demons_?" said both Dipper and Mabel, collectively. Mabel actually seemed to be the one more excited about it, since she added on her own, "Like, devil horns and stealing your soul-type demons?"

Sam and Dean both couldn't help but laugh a little, and the latter said, "Not exactly the devil horns bit, but yeah, some do take your soul." It then occurred to him that he probably shouldn't be talking about demons to children, so he stopped. And it seemed that Sam thought the same because his younger brother gave him a look of disapproval and immediately changed the subject.

"Well, now that we know it's likely some outside force making these grow here, I suppose we can't rule out witchcraft. Uh—Mabel, Dipper, do you know anyone in this town who has something against—well, everybody in Gravity Falls?"

The look that they gave each other was almost identical to the one that Sam and Dean often gave each other when they had the same thought at the same time. They then looked to the Winchesters and said simultaneously, "Gideon."

"He's probably the only one in this town with the actual ability to do this," Dipper added. "He had this amulet that could levitate things—"

"Before I destroyed it!"

"—and I'm sure he must have some other magical objects because he still does his stupid psychic shows, and he still tries to take down the Mystery Shack. Oh—uh, he's kind of our rival," he explained when they looked a little confused. "And he's powerful. So I'd bet a  _lot_  that it was him."

There was a short pause before Dean said, "Well, that's definitely a lead if I ever saw one. Let's get back to the motel so we can change into the suits again."

* * *

On the walk there, they had Mabel and Dipper tell them everything they could about Gideon and subsequently figured out a plan—both on the walk to the motel and the drive to the house that stood next to the Tent of Telepathy.

"You sure this'll work?" Sam asked Dipper, who was sitting in the back seat of the Impala with Mabel, as they pulled up.

"Yep," he confirmed. "Well, assuming he doesn't have some secret weapon to attack us all with… heh."

Sam noticed that neither of them seemed afraid at all, though. Well, Mabel was still in awe of the car, but he'd still have thought they'd be a little nervous. Apparently he'd underestimated them.

"Everyone ready?" Dean said, just to make sure, and when they all said some variation of "Yes," he opened the door of the Impala and walked out with Sam.

The Winchester brothers approached the door and knocked while Mabel and Dipper both went around to the side of the house. About ten seconds later, the door was opened to reveal an overweight man wearing a flowery button-up shirt and a straw hat. Smiling, he said, "What can I do for you sirs?"

"We're with a talent agency, Mr. Gleeful," said Sam, flashing his Bikini Inspector I.D. fast enough that the man could barely look at it, "and we'd like to talk to your son Gideon about the possibility of statewide shows."

The man's face broke into a wider smile at once, but before he could say anything, they all heard another voice—a much smaller one—from behind.

"What? I heard my name!" And suddenly, a little boy who looked like a hundred pounds of nine year-old arrogant con-artist pushed past his father so he could see who was at the door. "Did you say  _statewide shows_?"

"Sure did, son," Dean said in a surprisingly good imitation of a slight southern twang, and Sam glanced at him in shock for a moment. "Now if you'd just let us in, we can negotiate it."

The father stepped aside to give them room to walk in and gestured to their couch, while Gideon sat in his dad's usual chair.

"I'm his manager," the man started to say, "so any questions about his financial state can go to me—"

"Oh, that won't be necessary just yet, sir," Sam said politely up at him, folding his hands in his lap. "It would actually be better if we talked to Gideon alone, first."

"Oh, alrighty then," he said cheerfully. "I'll just be upstairs, then."

Perfect. Once they were left alone with the kid, they both turned to Gideon. They really didn't know what to make of him, what with the flashy blue suit and the silvery hair done up in a hairdo much too tall for a nine year-old. Not even the flashiest of Hollywood dressed like that…. They figured it was a southern thing.

"Now, before we get you to sign the forms, we gotta tell you—we know about your little sorcery deal, and if you've got anything to do with this dandelion wish business, you better tell us now." Both Dean's accent and demeanor changed in one instant, as did Gideon's expression. Those little fat fingers didn't grab for anything in his horror, so Sam and Dean rightly assumed there was nothing he could do against them right now and neglected to signal Dipper and Mabel inside.

"I—what are you talking about?" Gideon squeaked, and the Winchesters continued to glare at him. "Did those Pines twins send you?"

At that, they pretended to appear confused, like they'd never heard of them. Having been hunters for a long time, this wasn't the first time they'd had to expect that.

"I think you know exactly what we're talking about. There is chaos going on in Gravity Falls right now, and we have reason to believe that this is your fault." Sam's voice was low and steady, unlike his compassionate voice that he reserved for victims. "We know for a fact that you possess magical items capable of this, and you're the prime suspect for someone who would want to cause chaos in this town. If you just confess and put a stop to it, nothing will happen to you. I bet you don't even know exactly what you've gotten yourself into, here."

"What?—I—no!" Flustered and somewhat frightened, Gideon straightened up in his seat. "I've been in my house all day, I didn't do anything! How…  _how would a widdle kid wike me be able to hurt anyone?_ " With that, he put on the precious and innocent face. Unlike everyone else but Stan Pines, it didn't work the least bit on Sam and Dean, who merely frowned and looked at each other briefly.

"Gideon, do you have any proof to offer that you had nothing to do with this?" said Sam, starting to think that perhaps this kid was, indeed, innocent."

"Well, I—"

"Do you mind if we search your bedroom to make sure?" Dean said flatly, with a mock-polite smile. Gideon looked like he felt he had no choice, and got up to lead them upstairs to his bedroom.

He stood by, a nearly nervous wreck, as the Winchesters were merciless. They left no spot unchecked—under his pillows, between his mattress and the bed frame, in all his dressers, in his closet, underneath his desk…. It wasn't so much that Gideon was afraid of them finding something as he was that they would mess up the organization of his things, or find his—

"You've got a shrine to Mabel Pines?  _Really?_ " Dean gave the kid a thoroughly creeped-out look before he continued the search and tried to decide whether he should tell Mabel about that or not.

Several minutes later, they came up with nothing.

"What, so we just say he's innocent, then?" said Dean quietly, so Gideon couldn't hear from across the room.

"Well, there's no concrete proof," Sam offered, shrugging. "And he looked scared enough he might have crapped his pants back there, so I figure if he did it, he would've admitted it."

"Ugh. Fine." That meant they'd lost their one solid lead, and Dean always hated it when that happened. Walking over to Gideon, he said in his most authoritative voice possible, "You're going to tell your dad that you didn't agree with the agency's personal demands, okay? Okay."

When they left the Gleeful house, they reluctantly shook their heads and shrugged at Dipper and Mabel, whose faces fell as they all walked back to the Impala.

And up in his bedroom, Gideon felt glad that he kept everything of importance in the warehouse.


	4. Chapter 4

As per Mabel's request, the very next thing they did was get lunch. Dipper wouldn't have minded not eating for another few hours if it meant adventure, but he wasn't complaining, and neither were Dean and Sam. They needed a half an hour or so to refuel and discuss.

Lazy Susan didn't seem to think it strange that the twins and the supposed honeymoon couple she'd met yesterday were together there, but they'd all have guessed that anyway, because of her likely being senile. And this time, Sam didn't win them pancakes—half because neither of them felt like eating anymore of those things and half because he supposed he had to at least somewhat protect his older brother's masculinity.

"Looks like there's really only one option at this point," Dean said in between bites of his mediocre burger.

"Go straight to the source of these things in the forest?" Dipper assumed, and Dean smiled in pride at him.

"Yep."

"Exactly what I was thinking," said Sam. "Whatever's sending them straight into town might not even be a person. It could just be some creature living out there."

"There are a lot of creatures in that forest, though," Dipper warned, though not sounding too worried for them. "And this place is pretty deep in."

"Don't worry," Sam assured him, "we can handle it. We have a lot of… safety precautions. And, uh—speaking of which, I guess… well, this is where we let you guys off."

"What?" Dipper and Mabel said at once, frowning deeply.

"This is dangerous territory, and, well, I'm sorry, but we can't let you two tag along on this part." Back to the compassionate voice, it was. "You said it yourself, Dipper, there's creatures in there. And if you or your sister get hurt, it's going to be on Dean and me, and we can't let you get hurt on our behalf. It's too dangerous for—"

"What, too dangerous for kids?" Mabel protested, getting all spunky and independent again. "Well guess again, buddy, we're not kids. We've solved mysteries plenty of times before. We've caught monsters and gone back in time and I've even had monster _boyfriends_ , so we are  _perfectly_  qualified for this, mister!" She finished her little speech, which had resulted in her eventually standing up in her seen, booping Sam's nose and sitting back down. It seemed she couldn't even be frustrated with him for long.

"Just because you've never gotten hurt before doesn't mean you won't this time," Dean said, looking straight at Dipper very seriously. "We can't let you come along on the actual hunt. I'm sorry."

Rather than looking extremely hurt, Dipper put on a face of a determined con-man and said, "Well, if you don't let us come, then I won't let you use the map in my book that'll lead you to the right place."

Sam and Dean froze, both of them inwardly sighing very deeply and then grimacing at each other.  _Touché, Mabel and Dipper Pines._

* * *

Now that everything was settled, there was no point in wasting daylight. The four of them rode the Impala to the edge of the Gravity Falls forest where they had seen most convenient to enter, at which point Sam and Dean headed to the trunk.

"What—woah, are those guns?" said Dipper, startled and excited at the sight of the Winchesters' arsenal. He hadn't expected things to get this serious.

"Yeah, it's always important we have some on us," Dean said absentmindedly, and then he turned to Sam. "D'you think we'll need salt rounds?"

"Might as well have a pistol loaded with them, just in case. Don't think we'll need the Colt, though."

"Do  _we_  get weapons?" asked Mabel in all seriousness (and hopefulness), actually jumping up and down a little.

"Uh—let's see…." Dean reached in and grabbed the two smallest daggers he could find, and handed them to the twins. "Here, it's all I trust you with. And it's only for emergency, really—if anything comes towards you, Sam and I'll be sure to shoot it."

Dipper opened up the book to the dandelion page again, and they all headed into the forest, following the paths based on his instructions. Once or twice they seemed to have walked in a small circle, and the book had to be handed to Sam to trust with figuring out directions along with Dipper's experience in the forest. And then with the couple creatures they ended up facing, two hours later they still hadn't quite reached their destination.

As they stood over the seemingly dead giant tree spider, Dean told Dipper to check the book for info on them.

"It seems pretty dead, dude," said Sam.

"Yeah, well, so did that last thing, but then it turned out bullets only killed it straight in the heart, so I'd like to just make sure," Dean replied in the most heavily sassy voice he could.

"…Nah, I think we're fine," Dipper told them. And as he closed the book, all the pages went to the front cover at first, and something on the inside of the back cover caught Dean's eye.

"Hey, Dipper—mind if I see that journal for a second?"

He raised an eyebrow, but didn't really hesitate to hand it to him. "Uh, sure. Knock yourself out."

Everyone watched him curiously as he flipped to the back cover to get a closer look, and then adopted an expression so serious that it looked for a moment as though something might've been wrong. "Sam. Take a look at this."

"What's—oh.  _Oh._ "

"Yeah."

On the inside back cover was an extremely familiar six-pointed star—the Aquarian Star. More commonly known to them as the symbol of the Men of Letters, the organization that had been providing for their permanent living space for a while now. And which held the records of all information about everything supernatural. It actually made this book's existence make more sense, now that they knew.

Part of each of them felt as though the book belonged to them, but really, it was only about the creatures in Gravity Falls, which probably couldn't be found anywhere else. Dipper was the one who'd found it, too, and it wouldn't have helped them, anyway.

"So… what's going on?" Dipper said awkwardly, not sure what the brothers were doing.

"Oh—well, it probably won't matter to you," Dean cleared his throat and said as he handed the book back, "but that journal was written by a man a part of an organization called the Men of Letters. And our, uh—our grandfather was part of that organization, too."

"Woah—so—?"

"No, it definitely wasn't him who wrote it. But hey, let's get our butts in gear, kiddos."

* * *

When they finally reached the place, it was kind of anti-climatic. Dean and Sam, being the hunters they were, half-expected something to jump out at them, or for all of them to be thrown back by some invisible force. That sort of thing usually happened with them—every time they were close to solving something, there was a new problem to deal with, or the monster that was running the show showed up.

They were used to pretty much running in ready to go guns blazing. But now, as they circled the area with their guns aimed, there was nothing to shoot at.

"I… guess they're not home?" Sam said weakly—but then they all turned to notice Mabel walk forward and pick up one of the dandelions, pause for a minute, and blow on it.

"Mabel, what are you—?"

But Dean was cut off as there was a sudden, strong gust of wind in his face, and what appeared to be an eight inch-tall woman in a leafy black dress was now floating in front of them and glaring. He aimed his gun at once, but didn't shoot quite yet. He'd learned over the years that shooting first was most hunters' problem.

"I just wished for the source of this problem to show up," Mabel said simply, though stepping back and away from the woman. "I don't know why none of us thought of that sooner…."

" _Yes, I didn't expect that little development_ ," said the surprisingly voluptuous voice of the small woman. Hell, if she was normal sized, Dean would have been likely to go after her. " _Would you point that thing away from me, please?_ " She looked straight into the barrel of the gun and then at Dean and suddenly came off as one of those snobby British chicks. Kind of like Bela.

"Not a chance, sister. Not until you tell us what you are, and why you did this."

At that, she gave him a devilish smirk. " _Ever heard of a woman called Eris?_ "

"You mean… the Goddess of Chaos?" Sam asked, stepping forward. He was the one who'd excelled in high school and had learned all that Greek mythology, so he knew. And even though Dean was used to Sam being the knowledgeable one, he still threw his brother a look.

" _The one and only_ ," she giggled, her laugh sounding like knives tinkling together. " _She's our beloved mother—and by_ our _I mean those like me. We used to be normal,_ boring _fairies… but then she gave us a gift. A bite from her Apple of Discord. We live to cause chaos now. In whatever way we can, which usually doesn't leave many options._ "

So they were some kind of discordian fairy, then? Sounded good enough to shoot for Dean. But as he readied his finger on the trigger, Sam said, "How come you're not in Greece, then? Why come all the way to Oregon?"

" _Expanding your boundaries can never hurt, Mister Winchester._ "

Upon realizing that  _Oh shit, she knows who we are_ , Dean didn't hesitate to fire the gun. But when he did, it seemed that the gunshot went through thin air, as the fairy disappeared just before the bullet was fired from the barrel.

In the next second, Sam was being surrounded by black mist and smoke on all sides, and it rolled and convulsed like a small storm, the discordian fairy's face flashing in and out. He couldn't see through it, and he didn't dare try to shoot for fear of hitting his brother or the twins. There didn't seem to be anything he could do from in there.

"Sammy!" Dean shouted at once, wanting to aim his gun but then remembering Sam was inside that mess. His face contorted in worry for a moment before he remembered that he also had salt rounds with him. Those wouldn't hurt Sam, and if he remembered correctly from that time in Elwood, fairies had to stop and count salt if it was dropped in front of them. Salt would evidently go everywhere, so it was worth a shot.

So in two seconds flat, Dean switched guns and shot the round of salt straight at his brother. As soon as it went through, the smoke seemed to fizzle out, and it rematerialized into the fairy as Sam fell to the ground from being knocked so hard. She looked up and glared furiously at them before beginning to count out the salt granules that had scattered.

Looked like the rules still applied even to ancient fairies bound to the mortal world. It was a high-five worthy win—but not until this one was gone for good. There hadn't been  _that_  much salt, so it was only a matter of time before she was up and powerful again.

Realizing the same thing, Sam scrambled to stand up again—and as he did, he saw Mabel standing a couple feet away in fighting-stance, holding her dagger out.  _Wait._  Silver—that worked against evil fairies, didn't it?

"Quick, Mabel!" said Sam urgently as he stood up, pointing directly to the dagger, and she nodded and handed it to him at once. He wasted no time in rushing forward and running the blade through the fairy's back.

She screamed, but it barely lasted. Her body went up in self-consuming flames, and another sudden breeze passed, leaving Sam crouching with a knife covered in black goo. Welp. Nothing they weren't used to. If they didn't count having twelve year-olds with them, that is.

"Well, that's done with," said Dean gruffly, kicking almost fondly at the somewhat faded patch of dandelions. He was always a little nostalgic after every particularly fun case was over.

"Finally," Dipper agreed, letting out a breath that he'd been holding for about a minute. What could he say, the suspense had been killing him.

After wiping the evil fairy blood from his dagger onto the ground, Sam turned around to face Mabel and gave her a bit of a proud smile, to which she beamed. She seemed to be the braver of the Pines twins. "Next time, why don't you wish for the enemy to show up powerless?"

* * *

About halfway through on the way back, it was already getting rather dark. It was a good thing they always brought flashlights.

"You know, with the amount of mysteries in that book," Dean started to say while they carefully stepped over fallen trees, "I don't see any reason why we don't just stay in Gravity Falls. I mean, with Sam and I's skills, we could knock them all out and just—well, kill all the monsters in this forest, and maybe figure out who wrote that book, and everything would be safe once we—"

"But—"

The high-pitched syllable of protest from Mabel was unexpected enough for everyone to stop walking. She looked up at the brothers a little sadly.

"But then what would Dipper and I do?"

"Wha—?"

"She's right, Dean," Dipper started, looking serious. "I—we love solving mysteries, it's… it's what's made our summer so fun so far. We get to go on adventures every other day, and I love it. It's great. If you just solve everything… there'll be nothing left for us to do. You can't just take all of the cases at once. I won't let you."

 _Woah_ , they had not been expecting that. Sam had even been all for Dean's idea beforehand—but he understood what the twins were saying. And he wasn't going to try to take this all away from them. Giving Dean a reluctant look, he said, "Don't worry, we get it. We really can't stay here long, anyways. We've always got work to do."

"That's right," Dean agreed, his mind quickly changing.  _Don't want to be hanging 'round here when my angel finally decides to show up again,_  he thought.  _If he decides to show up again._  "Now let's get going so we can get you guys home before it's pitch black out."

* * *

Dipper and Mabel found that Grunkle Stan barely realized they weren't home, as expected. Meanwhile, Dean and Sam stayed their extra night in the motel.

The next morning, they decided not to go to Greasy's Diner. Those pancakes had started to not agree with them after finally digesting completely. Instead, they figured they could get food once they were out of Gravity Falls.

 _Out of Gravity Falls._  The thought made them feel a little sad, not unlike a handful of their cases. Though this was the first time in a long time they'd had one they knew they'd miss. Try  _years_ , long time.

After leaving the motel, it occurred to Sam and Dean that they ought to check and make sure that the dandelions growing in the park didn't work anymore. So they headed to Circle Park one more time and found the spot near the trees where they were growing. Sam figured it was his turn to try this time, so he picked one, wished, and blew. There was a significant lack of anything.

"Guess it's fixed, then," said Sam with a finality, tossing the empty stalk on the grass and starting back towards the car.

"Good, too—as much as I'm gonna miss this place, I  _really_  don't want to stay longer," Dean admitted. "What'd you wish for, anyway?"

At that, Sam smirked like a child with a secret, but then said, "For you to suddenly be wearing a dress."

Dean only frowned when he caught himself actually considering what that might be like.

A little more than five minutes later, the Winchesters' Impala pulled up in front of the Mystery Shack. There was no way they were going to leave without giving Mabel and Dipper a proper goodbye—though once they got there, they realized the complication with making it not seem weird, considering the twins were children and that the others there thought they were FBI.

When they were no more than five feet from the place, however, the twins came running out the front door.

"We saw you from our bedroom window!" they both said breathlessly, stopping in front of the brothers and panting to catch their breath. Mabel then said in what sounded like distress, "Are you leaving?"

"Yeah, I'm afraid we have to," Sam answered, offering a small smile. "We can't stay in one place too long, you know. There's always other things to hunt."

"But hey," Dean said, pulling a piece of paper out of his pocket, "if you ever come across something too big, or something you can't handle, don't hesitate to call us for help. More than half the time we'll be on our way within an hour." He handed the number to his other,  _other_  cell to Dipper, who took it in both hands, looked up at him with another admiring smile, and then stuffed it in his pocket.

They couldn't promise to visit out of their own free will again, though. As strange as this town was on principle, they couldn't just break one of their main rules for a little visit.

"Thanks, Dean," said Dipper. "This was all really fun—you know, we all make a great team. Two sets of siblings hunting monsters… that would make a great TV show, heh."

Dean couldn't help but think back to that time with the alternate universe and Jensen Ackles and Jared Pada-whatever, and he subsequently couldn't help the short guffaw that came from his mouth.

"It was great hunting with you guys, too," he agreed, and Sam nodded with him. "See you—"

"Wait!" Sounding suddenly alarmed, Mabel jumped up and looked up to Sam as everyone looked at her. "Before you go, can I  _please_  touch your hair? It's just so long and soft-looking and—"

If only to shut her up, Sam sighed and bent down. As she squealed in joy, he supposed he was also glad to make her so happy—until he felt a slight tug on the bottom part of his hair and heard her say " _Snip_."

Just as he was able to clutch his hair and stand up and yell, she was running back into the house, cackling.  _Another sigh._

"Great to meet you, Dipper," Dean told him after laughing at Sam's predicament, his voice fond. "See you around."

"See you around, Dean," he returned, sounding hopeful.

Dean gave him a past on the shoulder before stuffing his hands in his pockets and walking bowl-leggedly as ever back to the car. As he put his hands on the wheel and began driving, he and Sam both took in their last deep breath in Gravity Falls and decided they were never going to forget this place.

Watching them leave, Dipper etched the image of that car in his mind so he would always know if Sam and Dean Winchester ever came riding back into town. That black '67 Chevy Impala would become legend—because he was going to record it in the remaining empty pages of the journal. He wasn't ever going to forget them.

And now that she had a small lock of Sam's hair, he didn't think Mabel would ever forget, either.


End file.
